


Dry My Eyes on the Highway

by changbinglish



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Car Sex, Concerts, Denial of Feelings, Doomed Chansol, Eventual Smut, Game Journalist Wonwoo, Getting Together, Just Driving From Sea To Shining Fucking Sea Baby! What Could Go Wrong, Love Confessions, M/M, Marveling At The Great Outdoors, Outdoor Sex, Past M/F Relationships, Repressed Jealousy Among Other Things, Switching, THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED, The Sexual Tension Of Twenty Questions, With Special Guests Big Boss and Wonwoo Crop Top
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:02:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/changbinglish/pseuds/changbinglish
Summary: It’s hard to breathe for both of them, but for different reasons.Wonwoo swallows and almost feels guilty for disregarding the wide sky and the red monuments of rock curving around them like earth’s collarbones. He sees in profile how Chan’s eyes give way to his cheeks when he smiles. The square jut of his jaw outlined now by slivers of warm shadow.He looks at Chan, who he’s seen a million times in a billion different lights and angles. He chooses Chan when the scenery offers its rare gifts to him in this moment. Wonwoo figures that growing up is prioritizing.
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino, Jeon Wonwoo/Lee Chan | Dino
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24
Collections: A Sip of Summer Wine





	Dry My Eyes on the Highway

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic for Seventeen and it's one of my favorite genres of all time: coming-of-age road trip. I read this prompt and saw that [TJ and Amal](http://tjandamal.com/), one of the most formative webcomics I've ever read, was an inspiration for it. WAS I JUST SUPPOSED TO SAY NO? I really hope I do it justice because I adore Wonchan with all I have. As an immigrant boy who likes to drive with friends, this story is very close to home for me (and, at the same time, very far from home). I hope you enjoy it, even though I have no fucking idea how writing jobs work and I have not visited Every place written about here lmao
> 
> Work and chapter title are from [Never Wanna Know by MØ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRIIHEndqbE&ab_channel=MOMOMOYOUTH) and I highly recommend the entire album [No Mythologies to Follow](https://open.spotify.com/album/3jvBPJAaByrTeNkEgvwZeu?si=L9R5P5WcTNac_9u1jY3Irw) as a general soundtrack to the fic

_(But the nights are so cold, how I need your human soul)_

Wonwoo’s not sure why he suggests it, but he does.

Originally, Chan was going to fly to New York to see Vernon, stay with him for two weeks, and come back in time to help out with the second round of youth dance camps with Soonyoung. That was his plan, to fly out a little less than a month from now.

Chan tells Wonwoo and Soonyoung this over a box of pizza and fucking Bud Light Lime because Soonyoung bought a twelve-pack (actually an eleven-pack) of “ocean potion” on clearance, because one bottle was missing (who steals just one Bud Light Lime from a twelve-pack at Albertson’s?) when he was getting groceries. The purchase was one among others made with the intent of hosting a modest poolside kickback to celebrate the end of the semester, and his birthday, and maybe Jun’s birthday if he wanted it to be a joint thing again like last year. But the community pool is currently closed for the next two weeks due to some unspecified sanitation issues. So, due to mystery pool cooties, Soonyoung and Wonwoo bide their time on dry land, inside of doors, joined by Chan, who lives in the downstairs unit.

The sun is in its peak position outside and Soonyoung likes to keep the blinds open to maximize natural light, which reaches Wonwoo’s side of the couch in a perfect striped rectangle. He figures he probably looks like a cat curled up and squinting against the arm of the couch, but the warmth is too pleasant to change positions. He wonders if Chan gets the same amount of light in his apartment, if San Jose weather is as nice to him just a dozen feet below.

Actually, the Lime isn’t bad. Soonyoung insists on drinking it out of his mug shaped like a tiger’s head. It’s fine that they’re not at the pool. It’s fine that it’s just Wonwoo on one end of the couch and Chan on the other, Soonyoung sprawled on the floor as they give varying levels of attention to what’s on TV. It’s fine that Chan is flying to see his long-distance boyfriend for two weeks.

“You’re flying by yourself?” Wonwoo asks Chan, anticipating something, mostly just the punishment his gut is waiting to inflict upon him for cheese-grease-beer crimes.

“Yeah, I’ve been looking at flights. Would either of you be able to take me to the airport?” Chan doesn’t have a car, just a rotating cast of hyungs with the inability to say no to him.

Soonyoung answers between two mouthfuls of pizza. “For me, depends on when your flight is. Work’s been upping my hours. The other job. Wonwoo can probably take you.”

He’s right. Wonwoo works from home, has been since graduating last semester, he’s just there until the apartment lease is up. His daily schedule consists of sleeping until eleven or noon, checking emails and messages, writing and re-writing and sending off his drafts, “researching” games firsthand or watching playthroughs of them at different speeds, and if he gets done before midnight, he can relax with a book or non-work game or show. Or he can join in on whatever Soonyoung’s up to, which can range anywhere from completing a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle to hitting up a club downtown. It’s not hard to guess which end of the Soonyoung Activity Spectrum he prefers. Coincidentally, if Chan is down for the thing, Wonwoo is, more often than not, also down.

“Yeah. I can take you to the airport.” Wonwoo says, and his casual tone doesn’t _sound_ forced but the words certainly leap off his tongue with some eagerness. He doesn’t need to know when his flight is, he’d drive Chan to the Bermuda Triangle at four AM if he asked. He considers verbalizing this willingness, bordering on deranged, but he can just assume that it’s silently understood between them. Something stirs at the thought of not seeing Chan for two weeks, not having him come up to their place to bother them, while never truly being a bother.

Right now they’re watching some mini-doc from Vice about Mormon porn. Wonwoo’s already seen it and, in fact, isn’t even wearing his glasses right now, just letting his eyes unfocus and re-focus as Chan scrolls through Expedia on his phone. Chan’s wearing a sleeveless tie-dye shirt that may or may not be Vernon’s. Wonwoo has been trying not to sneak peripheral peeks at the noticeable progress in his biceps. Wonwoo himself didn’t used to work out, but the first time he saw Chan wear a tank, he planned to nonchalantly ask Jun if he could tag along the next time he was at the gym. Not envy, but admiration, or something else entirely. Something you feel in locker rooms, when you look in the mirror, when you look aspirationally.

“Thanks hyung.” Chan stretches out the vowel in _hyung_. “I’m looking at flights for the twenty-fourth.”

Chan and Vernon have been together for almost half a year now. To trace the origins of their relationship, you’d have to go back to Chan’s freshman year, when he was literally and figuratively drunk with freedom, declaring his major first (dance), then his sexuality (bi), all culminating in dying his hair pink after midterms week. He joined the Korean Student Association (though you don’t really have to go to the meetings, you just follow their social media pages and use them as a directory to locate bubble tea and barbecue companions) and within weeks was taken under the wing of Kwon Soonyoung, fellow dance major and human firework. Wonwoo characterizes Soonyoung and Chan’s friendship as “respectful but mutual obsession.”

Having finished off his third slice of pizza, Chan reaches over the coffee table to try Wonwoo’s half-empty ocean potion. After a curious sip he gives a pleased “mm” and stands up to get his own can from the fridge like he lives there, and he does in most ways, right as two women in white embrace on the screen.

Actually, Chan was introduced to Wonwoo as part of a couple. At the time he was with a girl named Yerim, who he’d met during orientation, and they were all attending the same Friendsgiving. They had brought one of four pies for the spread, theirs was cherry. Soonyoung had ruffled Chan’s hair the minute he stepped through the threshold of Joshua’s apartment, playfully dodging Soonyoung’s affection while he shed his coat, like they’d known each other for years already, like Soonyoung had reached a near-immediate conclusion of fondness within days of befriending him.

In contrast, Wonwoo and Soonyoung had been roommates for almost eight months before their physical contact progressed past the greeting dap or occasional hand on shoulder. But hearing Chan’s boisterous laugh, his confidence like a light show cutting through the crowded living room, it made sense to love him quickly.

And he and Yerim were cute together, but they split up just a week before that Christmas because of “differing interests.” They don’t talk anymore. She has since minimized contact with men, though Chan will get genuinely defensive if you joke about it being his fault.

Wonwoo himself has dated very sparingly, and only girls. For him, intimacy with a man is non-committal by necessity, by some arbitrary force. Not shame, not exactly, probably just his intense need for privacy. It’s easier to keep hook-ups secret. Sometimes it was Soonyoung going down on him, when he was shaking from deadline stress, because what are roommates for? He did the same for Soonyoung, it was only fair, and sometimes Jun would get tangled in the mix, usually with alcohol, always eager to kiss.

Part of him wishes he could’ve done something with Seungcheol, before he graduated, but Wonwoo’s like that. Him and his habit of missing opportunities, of keeping people at arm's length for too long. He has spent a total of ten minutes on any dating app before swearing it off. Grindr’s immediacy is its only virtue and Wonwoo has gotten exactly two good lays out of it. He hasn’t used it in well over a year, but the black and orange icon is still nestled deep in a folder you’d have to really hunt for on his phone.

But, it’s when Chan got with Vernon that things changed. They had a history class together. Like a bad joke, _you may have history with him, but you have chemistry with me_. Except none of them took chemistry and Wonwoo would be hard-pressed for a formula in which he and Chan make sense together.

The course was disproportionately heavy in dense reading compared to their other classes. To get through it with their sanity intact, Vernon and Chan studied together frequently. Wonwoo remembers when Soonyoung, who states everyone's business like he’s paid by the hour to do it, would coo over Chan’s panicked texts, trying to decipher the reason behind Vernon’s lingering stares. And it was inevitably endearing to Wonwoo, too, but something about it felt bitter. Maybe because he was still getting over Sejeong. Maybe because he was sure Vernon just had a general staring problem. Yeah, that was it, one or both of those.

He settles for being Chan’s loyal, quietly devoted friend. It’s fine that he’s with someone else.

When Chan excuses himself, back downstairs to his own apartment for a scheduled Facetime call with Vernon, Wonwoo doesn’t allow himself to think about why he feels like a weight is strung to his chest. He doesn’t allow himself to wonder what they talk about, if Chan eats a salad and goes on about the week’s happenings while Vernon listens intently over two cups of instant ramen. No speculating about jokes shared through the screen, _can I have a bite. I’ll eat the cucumbers_. He might hope that his name comes up in their conversations, that Chan talks about him at least half as much as he talks about Soonyoung.

Wonwoo likes Vernon. They’re friends. He can see why Chan likes him so much. They both have mile-wide smiles. Objectively, removed from all bias, it’s cute.

Soonyoung yawns and scratches his belly like it’ll help the pizza digest. “Shit, I wish _I_ could take a vacation. Travel somewhere with my boo that I don’t have. But I don’t think I could ever do long distance.”

“Yeah. Me neither.” In his agreeing, Wonwoo makes the mistake of wondering how hard it is, to be away from your person. It’s a whole other coast. At this time the sun’s already setting for Vernon.

There’s a puckered sort of smile on Soonyoung’s face as he sprawls out on the floor. “Remember that Japan trip we were planning-but-not-really? For graduation. We thought we’d really get the chance to vacation there, huh.”

Then an idea slips through Wonwoo’s efforts at suppression. There was the moment of coincidence, when he heard from Chan that Vernon had scored his current studio internship in New York. The itch of a thought, _oh, we might end up working in the same city then, if Hitbox gives me a permanent position_. Unvoiced, and previously hypothetical, but now there’s some real possibility to it.

Wonwoo likes his job. He’s written for similar publications, but he likes Hitbox the most. They’re his speed, not so poisoned by irony and masculinity like the other game-centric media outlets. And they like him back, evidently, because they offered him an interview to be a staff writer in their New York office. When he got the email he had to read it three more times, and a few more out loud to confirm its validity. Even then the interview is _just a formality_ , the talent director had said in her email, which actually had the perfect absence of formality without being insincere. There’s basically a space in the office already waiting for him. This was just three days ago and he’s told nobody else, not his parents, not Soonyoung or Chan, not even his would-be colleagues.

There’s the Slack channel for freelancers and regular contributors like him, and the Discord server for writers and “creator” friends in that circle. "Union members." There’s a lot of overlap but at least in the Discord he can talk about Super Monkey Ball speedruns without an ounce of inhibition.

“You should stream, or podcast,” one of them tells him on call when they’re drinking and playing a medley of party games from three different time zones. “You have the voice for it.”

He pulls his mic in close, drops his tone a good octave for effect, and says “I’ve got the face for it too.”

Nobody knows about his job offer because he isn’t sure about his answer yet. Half of him is screaming that he should take it, that it’s fucking obvious that he should take it, screaming this at the other half that wants to start chipping away at a master’s for whatever reason. If he accepts then his course of action is parallel to Vernon, who might not even come back to finish his degree. So which sounds better, stay in university and stagnate within the structure of curricula, or go out and enter the workforce three thousand miles from the place he’s called home most of his life, and why does the clearly correct choice seem like a bigger risk than he’s ready to take.

The thought is this: would it be weird to tag along with Chan, so he can interview and scope out the city for housing and other matters of life-uprooting, while Chan and Vernon do whatever it is that boyfriends do when it’s summer and you’re a teenage adult. Would that be weird. He could stay with a friend, Changkyun lives in Brooklyn, or he could find an Airbnb at the intersection of acceptable and sketchy. Wonwoo doesn’t want Chan to fly alone as much as he wouldn’t want to fly alone. Is that weird.

Soonyoung is waving a hand in front of his face when he realizes how deeply he has zoned out. They’re already mid-way of a different Vice doc that has invaded the screen via autoplay, this one is about VR sex, which _of course_ Wonwoo has already watched as well.

Soonyoung gives a light slap to his cheek. “Your turn to take out the trash, dude.” Wonwoo bats his hand away.

It’s also his turn to do the dishes, so he does, making sure to put Soonyoung’s precious mug on the drying rack so it doesn’t crack in the dishwasher. He finds his glasses and collects their pizza boxes and recycling, brings them down to the back of their apartment and dumps them into the bins beside his parked car. Outside the sun throws impossibly white light on the pavement, making Wonwoo’s whole face scrunch up to squint, he should have worn his shades. His eyes struggle to adjust and he misses the hunched-over body seated on the back door steps.

“Wonwoo-hyung.”

He sees Chan as soon as his name hits his ears, arms folded on top of his knees. He looks so small like this.

“Oh, hey. I thought you were calling Vernon.”

“I was. He couldn’t talk long but he just told me that,” he puts a hand through his hair, blowing frustrated air through puffed cheeks. “He got hired at the studio full-time. Which is great, they need him for a project they signed onto last-minute. It’s pretty serious, he can’t tell me much about it because of his NDA.”

Wonwoo whistles, eyes big. He wonders how big the name he’s working with is, for it to need secrecy. Still, it doesn’t sound entirely like good news. “But?”

Chan huffs through his nose. “But. It means I would only be able to visit him for a couple of days. He only has one free weekend now, instead of two weeks. He’s like, all booked with meetings and launch prep and shit. They just signed _yesterday_.” His palm slides even further through his hair, tangled strands and yet-unvented thoughts. Wonwoo frowns and Chan doesn’t look at him.

“It just. Sucks. Like, my _one_ fun thing I had planned for the summer was to go to New York and see him. And I already told Soonyoung to find someone to take my place teaching the first round of dance camps. So I can’t even work.” He does nothing to hide a pout. If Wonwoo follows the line of Chan’s stare it goes downward, to the sidewalk, where a beetle is braving the canyon of a pavement crack. “And I miss him. It’s probably not worth it to fly over for just a weekend now.”

Wonwoo can’t stop Chan’s words from twisting nerves in his chest so he just curls his fingers into his palms. Then the same itch from before morphs into something else, _would it be weird_ becomes ten times more severe. He knows deep down that he is not adventurous. So it’s really something when the offer comes out, sudden and absolutely too casual.

“Do you wanna drive there?”

Wonwoo’s not sure why he suggests it, but he does.

Chan’s eyebrows go up. “What?”

“I said I’d drive you to the airport. I could also just drive you _there_.” And this is the point where he can still pivot and make it a joke, but he presses on. “I’m serious. Road trip there. I have friends in New York I haven’t seen in forever.” _And Chicago_ , his brain wants to add, because it’s on the way, and Seungcheol is there.

Surprise is still blatant on Chan’s face, but he straightens up, puts his hands on his knees. “Hyung… That’s a lot of time and money. I can’t ask that of you.”

Wonwoo thinks if there’s ever a time to be bold, it’s now. He joins Chan on the steps. “I have time. Did Soonyoung ever tell you that we wanted to go to Japan for our graduation trip?” Chan shakes his head and Wonwoo feels like a salesman. “I’ve been saving up and it hasn’t gone anywhere. At least you _had_ a fun thing planned for the summer. I was just gonna work and rot with Soonyoung whenever he runs out of steam.” He doesn’t mention it, but his fun thing was actually going to E3, which was last weekend. But he was attending as a correspondent, so while it was fun, it was still work. Even if passes were free, even if he has a handful of new t-shirts to sleep and work out in, and a renewed desire for an Oculus on account of the life-changing Beat Saber booth.

There’s the subtlest change in Chan’s eyes and Wonwoo knows that he’s teetering on the edge of agreement or another humble refusal, because it works both ways: when given the choice, Chan won’t say no to his hyungs. Wonwoo’s thoughts sprint to ways of tugging him closer to a yes.

“Would you feel better about it if I picked the stops along the way? I can choose which, like, great American landmarks we see, and then we’ll be in New York. And you can do your thing there.” The beetle on the ground circles its legs like it’s riding a bicycle before eventually finding its footing on the next slab of concrete. Wonwoo adjusts his glasses. “Think of it as like, the trip is mine but the destination is yours.” _Does that even make sense. Is this still weird._

A big breath lifts up Chan’s shoulders and he crosses his arms. _Shit_ , Wonwoo thinks, _what other sweetener can I mix into this deal_. It’s definitely the heat, but Wonwoo feels it burn where his knee bumps Chan’s. _If you’re worried about my car, don’t be, I’m pretty sure it can make it. My old roommate lives in Chicago, he can probably put us up for a few nights coming and going. I’ll give you a couple days to think about it. Also I might have a job—_

His thoughts dissipate at Chan clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Okay. Let’s do it. I’ll cover gas and hotels on the way back, promise. It’ll be fun.”

Wonwoo’s not sure why Chan agrees, but he does. He mirrors the hand on his shoulder on Chan’s other side, turns to see the upturned corners of Chan’s mouth, like it was extraordinarily easy to agree to spending hundreds of consecutive hours together. Just the two of them in Wonwoo’s fucking Nissan.

Chan stands and offers Wonwoo his hand to help him up. “I’m sure Vernon will be happy to see you too, hyung.”

Vernon’s name feels like a warm sting as Chan’s head eclipses the sun and Wonwoo notices the beetle now in his shadow, finally clambering on to whatever obstacle lays ahead on the baked pavement. Wonwoo feels simultaneous comfort and unease at Chan so naturally including him in the picture. The feeling permeates the realization that yeah, he’d be happy to see Vernon, too. Maybe he’d be happy to see Chan being happy to see Vernon. Or something.

He takes Chan’s hand, just for the moment it takes to hoist himself up before he dusts the back of his pants off, brushing off the guilt for relishing the balmy contact of palms.

In an email exchange that he spends hours agonizing over, he schedules his interview with Hitbox for the weekend that they’ll be in the city, and requests a lighter load for the weeks that he’ll be driving. Thankfully and miraculously, his part of their E3 coverage impressed them enough to grant him something of a break, all he has to do is bring some ideas for video content.

Chan spends a lot of time in their apartment these days. _How long has it been since Soonyoung gave him a key_ , he wonders, _it must be coming up on a year_. Like he was a squatter in their home even before he was the resident underneath it.

They meet up over the week to plan the trip. Chan texts Vernon about it, and Wonwoo wonders what tone of “oh wow” he’d reacted with, how gummy his smile had been. The quickest pang of anxiety hits him with the thought that Vernon might assume some funny business between them—two bisexual boys alone on the road in the middle of summer for fourteen days—but reason salves him, Vernon is the opposite of the jealous type and Chan only has eyes for him. All the funny business is trapped in the privacy of Wonwoo’s skull.

When he’s not researching business projections of AAA studios for work, he’s researching which national parks and other sights dot the route from San Jose to New York. Chan bought too many otter pops on his last grocery trip, so he brings some up to share with Wonwoo as they sit at his kitchen table, multiple tabs open on their laptops, tasks and distractions butting heads.

“Fucking… logistics.” Wonwoo mutters with red dye on his lips as he sucks the dregs of ice and syrup from the plastic tube.

He reads the travel blogs. Skips all the parts that say to go to the Grand Canyon because _been there, done that_ , for both of them. Avoids all mentions of the South. These white writers with too much money and no fear of anything at all, speaking way too highly of couchsurfing with strangers for free along the way. Just the thought of it fills Wonwoo with the same dread and anxiety as the slow ascent of an amusement park drop ride, he’d much rather drop fifty bucks a night on some moldy motel room, bed bugs be damned.

Wonwoo turns his laptop to him. “I wanna visit this place. Arches National Park in Utah.” He scrolls through pictures of fire-colored sandstone arches, most of them taken at sunset, some at night with long-exposure to show the stars and Milky Way. All very high-definition and alluring. “It’s fifteen hours from here, Vegas is like the halfway point so we can stop and sleep somewhere around there. Would you be up to go hiking?”

Chan hums at a photo of a red wall of rock with a huge eye-shaped hole like a window to the sky. “Yeah, hyung, that looks pretty. I didn’t pin you as an outdoorsy type.”

“I’m not.” Wonwoo smiles. “But I know my legs are gonna be numb from driving, so I have to get my blood circulating somehow.” He doesn’t show him couples taking their wedding photos there.

He swears he isn’t a romantic, either, and again, he has no intention of funny business. He’s just had a strange craving for a good hike, an honest-to-God foray into nature, maybe it’s all the walking sims he’s had to play for work. As if every outdoor excursion promises a tender narrative complete with reflection and discovery of some hidden truth, if you play them right. He doesn’t like to leave the house until the mundane grows roots in him, until he thinks the whites of his eyes might melt from all the blue screen exposure, and four walls might strangle him in the slowest, contactless way. He likes his bed but wouldn’t mind a good view. Wouldn’t mind Chan being part of the view, but that image is batted away as soon as it takes shape in his thoughts.

Chan also seems genuinely excited for it, which assures him—one of Wonwoo’s fears is being horribly boring to someone as restless and wonderful as Chan. So he’s glad when he hears Chan pull up a video on his own laptop of someone’s vlog in the Canyonlands. It’s some adventure couple who says the word “sunset” a lot, they mention the double arch’s background role in Indiana Jones.

Wonwoo lets the video finish and then he’s on the Dyamond Lyfe website. He figures Chan will feel better about being his passenger if Wonwoo pretends to be selfish, and Wonwoo’s favorite band is on tour. Still, he wants Chan’s blessing on each point on their itinerary. “There’s also a concert I wanna go to. In Chicago.”

He had gone ahead and called Seungcheol, who is more than happy to let him and Chan spend the night at his apartment both times they pass through the city. Wonwoo’s been looking for a reason to visit him, Seungcheol says it’s no problem, he owes Wonwoo anyway, for all the heartache he absorbed through osmosis as Seungcheol dragged himself to the finish line of the technical direction track, bloody knuckles and what could have easily devolved into a drinking problem.

Wonwoo links Chan the single from Dyamond Lyfe’s most recent album. “It’s chiptune. It’s like, music made from old video game sounds. And standard rock instruments. I’ve tried to make it myself, but I don’t think I have the right ear for it.” He laments the 8-bit SoundFonts collecting dust on his hard drive, dormant Vocaloid emulations.

Chan plays the song and considers it carefully, fist propped under his chin. Wonwoo hates this part, the taste judgment, even if he and Chan share some of the same poptimist sensibilities. This is a deeper facet, but one worth sharing, one worth the unlikely but still possible ridicule. He tries not to stare too intently at Chan‘s head-nodding to the synths and bitcrushers.

“This is cool. It sounds like… what’s it called? Vaporwave? But more danceable.”

Wonwoo lets go of a breath he shouldn’t have been holding, and resists the urge to be pedantic about genres and internet subcultures. Talking about that kind of stuff out loud always sounds stupid anyway. The concert is the day after their last day in New York, so they’ll have to do some late-night driving before getting to Seungcheol’s place the second time around.

“I heard their shows are fun. They already came to the west coast earlier this year, but I missed them. I’ll pay for both our tickets.” The last part leaves his mouth before he can let it. Chan shakes his head and insists on paying for it, even makes a show of checking the ticket price and yanking his phone out to Venmo him on the spot.

Wonwoo doesn’t actually seek out concerts that much. Not really. His interest in a live event is inversely proportional to venue capacity, but he’ll make an exception for his favorite band. And what is this trip if not an exercise in defying the person he has always been?

But for who?

* * *

In the two days before their departure, once their itinerary is airtight by Wonwoo’s standards, he takes out the two duffel bags and carry-on suitcase from his closet. Packs almost every pair of underwear he owns because that’s what you do, for some reason, you always have to pack too much underwear. Two outfits for his interview, one with a suit jacket even though it will definitely be too hot to wear a jacket, hung carefully in a garment bag. Two possible concert outfits (Soonyoung suggests having a “slutty” option available, which Wonwoo only gives serious consideration for all of three seconds), a hiking outfit and-a-half, then about a dozen sets of clothes for driving, sleeping, and city-walking. A backpack for electronics, a bag for toiletries.

He goes over his packing list with Chan, who spends an hour laying out different ensembles for the weekend they’ll be in New York. Wonwoo sits on his suitcases to help close them.

“I’m packing thirteen toothbrushes.” He says when Chan finally yanks the zipper around.

“ _What_ ,” Chan exclaims with absolute incredulity and a punched-out laugh, but he plays along. “Why are you packing thirteen toothbrushes?”

It takes a wild amount of effort not to smile. “In case I lose the other twelve.” Still, he packs three toothbrushes.

The night before the trip begins, Wonwoo unearths a memory as he finds himself just a few blinks away from unconsciousness. In middle school he went on a field trip to a historic gold rush town, and as impossible as it was to fall asleep the night before, his outfit already laid out and a twenty dollar bill tucked into his Pokémon wallet, waking up that morning couldn’t have been easier. The air had tasted different when he arrived at school, filed onto the bus, and spent a noisy two hours not learning anything with his classmates, like the whole day was recess but better.

He remembers the click and scroll of the disposable camera his parents gave him, something entrusted to him with no expectation to make anything great or make anyone proud, just to document whatever he thought was worth remembering. The eager look on his crush’s face as she bought a tiny jar of gold leaf, the white dust and sunlight that coated everything from the horse carriages to the wooden signs peddling sarsaparilla and penny whistles. The identical sandwiches they ate at lunch. All these impressions of wonder fossilized in amber, like sugar-coated mosquitos sold in a gift shop. Wonwoo falls asleep thinking of how different it will feel now that he doesn’t need a permission slip, now that the next two weeks belong to him and a stripe of road across the country, semi-precious cargo in his passenger seat.

Saturday morning when they load everything into his Nissan, he thinks the air tastes similar to that day, even if he’s now aware of San Jose’s smog problem and only slightly less oblivious to potential roadside disasters. Wonwoo doesn’t know shit about cars, not even his own. He knows he fills up his tank about every ten days, knows each time it costs give-or-take forty bucks, plus two more if he grabs a soda (which is usually the case, vanilla coke if he’s feeling irresponsible). His dad told him it needs an oil change once every six months, or about every twelve-thousand miles. He washes it twice a month by hand in the driveway behind the apartment, vulnerable to the teasing wolf-whistle of Soonyoung from their balcony.

It’ll get them there, if he doesn’t think too hard about the shredded tires he sees on the side of the road sometimes. If he doesn’t think about how hot asphalt gets in the summer, or the vast amount of ways that engineering can fail. It’s fine. He ordered a tire pressure gauge off Amazon. It’ll be fine.

Chan dumps a bag of ice into the cooler they borrowed from Soonyoung, which sits in the back and clatters with bottles of water, soda, and cold brew coffees. Wonwoo takes one last look at the tetris-block-stack of bags and suitcases crowding his trunk before slamming it shut.

Browliner sunglasses perched on top of his head, Chan climbs in and sets his backpack at his feet. There’s a little smile idling on his lips, like he can taste the field trip air, too.

“You ready to do some driving, hyung?”

Wonwoo’s own sunglasses are prescription and he nods them off his head onto his eyes, where they land crooked.

They leave a little before noon so that they’ll pass through Las Vegas by nine. Wonwoo could have taken Highway 50 straight through Nevada, but I-5 is more familiar to him, and Google is saying that somehow there’s only a two-minute difference in ETA. So he heads south like he’s making the drive down to LA again, like he’s going to another conference or visiting his cousins.

Both wired on caffeine and anticipatory energy, they take turns saying “pass me the aux” which is their language for switching whose phone is connected to the car’s Bluetooth. It’s mostly Chan manning the music and shuffling through his white-passing playlist of dance pop, but Wonwoo doesn’t complain. He likes the songs that Chan plays. He can tell when one was recommended to him by Vernon, when there’s something at least a little strange about it. “Quirky” might be demeaning, maybe “unorthodox.” Wonwoo puts on Dyamond Lyfe and Japanese math rock when it’s his turn, so that’s how much he has to say about having unusual taste.

Chan talks about music and finals and Soonyoung and his absentee of a roommate, some business major who gets on his nerves but lets him eat his snacks. Wonwoo listens and listens and speaks only to give his input when prompted, like when they speculate with increasing ambition on Vernon’s top-secret collaborator (What if it’s Dyamond Lyfe? Rich Brian? Bruno Mars? _Beyoncé_?). When Chan tells a story it’s full of proxemics and dynamics, hands with their own vocabulary, like every anecdote in itself is another seatbelted performance. Wonwoo, his audience, is anything but captive, more than happy to let his passenger seat become a stage. Chan takes an hour break from conversation to catch up on a drama he’d downloaded to his phone, leaving Wonwoo alone with the sterile voice of his GPS app.

They’ve been on the road for about four hours when they stop in Bakersfield for an early dinner, which is just a chaos meal at Burger King. While they eat, Chan texts Soonyoung and wishes him luck on the first day of instructing the teen camps at the studio. Wonwoo avoids eye contact with Chan by staring at the baby looking over his shoulder from the booth behind him. They exchange raised eyebrows and suspicious pouts, like this infant stranger is onto him and Wonwoo is just a mirror. He excuses himself to the bathroom to put in some eyedrops, not the extra strength Rohto ones, he’s saving those for the twelve-hour drive on Thursday.

When they get back on the road Chan relinquishes his aux control to take a nap, seat reclined. He pulls out this stuffed dinosaur toy from his backpack and clings to it with his eyes closed as he dozes off, such a natural action that apparently needs no explanation, not even any time for Wonwoo to ask about it, as if it’s not torturously cute. While he sleeps, Wonwoo is tasked with maintaining their course as he listens to a podcast, which might have been what put Chan to sleep in the first place, but it helps Wonwoo stay awake, along with the gummy bears he’d gotten from a gas station. It also helps him focus on things other than the boy he’s trying to manually readjust his feelings for.

The road zooms by them with a little less familiarity now, cactuses start to dot the roadside hills with growing frequency and the sun begins its descent once they’ve made some headway on I-15. He knows Chan has woken up when there’s a little groan from the passenger side, followed by a resounding stretch. In his periphery he sees that Chan checks his phone.

Wonwoo doesn’t let his eyes off the road. “Had a good nap?”

“Yeah.” Chan rolls his head and rubs at his eyes. “How are you doing?”

Wonwoo flares his nostrils and exaggerates a huge breath, cracking his voice on purpose, “I’m fine.”

He has to convince himself that his feet and legs are still real and they still have to press on the gas and breaks, but he’s fine. Chan scoffs a laugh and takes a look at Wonwoo’s phone for how much of the route is left. There’s a little less than two hours until they’re in Vegas.

“Hyung, not that medical history isn’t fascinating, but could we turn off the podcast?”

Wonwoo nods. “You can put your music on. I’m a little bored of it, too.” He’s not.

The hosts are cut off in the middle of their typhoid discussion, but Chan doesn't curate more background noise.

“Actually, I kinda just wanted to talk.” He leans back in his seat and Wonwoo tries to hide the uptick of his heartbeat in a tiny smile. “If that’s cool with you. You wanna play twenty questions? I always played it with my family on road trips.”

Wonwoo laughs, because he imagines Chan and his brother fidgeting in the backseat of their family car. It beats the uninspired games of I Spy he’d try to play with his own brother every time they drove to LA to visit their relatives, like there was anything to see besides road signs and ocean, and that was before the shared Game Boy Advance simplified their lives.

“Okay, yeah, sure. You go first.”

Chan inhales and gives a long “hmm” while coming up with his first subject.

“Okay, got it.”

Then it’s a cycle that always starts with _animal, mineral, or vegetable?_ and ends with either unsatisfying surrender or somewhat satisfying triumph after a masterclass of sleuthing. The first time Wonwoo guesses, he pulls out _is it bigger than a breadbox_? to which Chan says _what the fuck_? It’s fine that he doesn’t get it, Wonwoo’s used to it, there are plenty of nonsenses he should keep to himself but doesn’t. Chan correctly guesses Sonic the Hedgehog, toaster, the moon, Carly Rae Jepsen, Mount Fuji. Wonwoo wins every time he’s guessing except for when Chan surprises him with Space Jam.

There’s one round where Chan is almost fifty questions in (Wonwoo always lets him ask as much as he wants, but he himself is mostly held to the twenty limit, which is fine) and Chan glares, eyebrows knit at the edge of frustration.

“Well, fuck if I know. What could this thing possibly be.”

Wonwoo almost feels bad that it was this difficult for him, but he can’t prevent the smirk from cracking across his own face. “Frank Sinatra.”

“Oh my God. How was I supposed to guess.”

That seems to put an end to the game, they’ve played enough rounds to reach a point where maybe there are no more things to guess, maybe they’ve exhausted half the list of nouns in the known universe. The air between them is quiet for a few moments, only the low rumble of wheels on road buzzing in their ears. Wonwoo chances a quick glance over at Chan, who wordlessly queues up songs from the more nighttime-appropriate end of his Spotify library, interspersed with the Korean ballads that he knows Wonwoo likes.

Chan is still holding the stuffed dinosaur. He says his mom got it for him on his fifth birthday and that it doesn’t have a name.

When they reach Las Vegas, the sky is just one shade off black but the lights from the city toss swathes of blue into the wisps of clouds. Wonwoo drives slowly through the Strip and that’s the extent of their tourism here, because they couldn’t squeeze anymore sightseeing onto their plate. And they’ve both seen it anyway, in one shape or another. Chan on a family vacation when he was in high school, Wonwoo when he attended a wedding that he’d rather not recall due to food poisoning reasons. Each lane of traffic is shiny, violent with headlights and harshly competing colors and commercial structures, framed by palm trees at different stages of life. Chan reads out loud the signs and billboards coaxing people into their warehouse-sized gift shops, their gentlemen’s clubs and casinos, points at the facsimile Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty and asks them _are you lost?_

The first motel they stay at is blush-colored and adequate, the lobby is staffed by a single person who looks tragically bored as she hands them keys to a room that smells mostly like detergent and only a little like mildew. Chan showers first while Wonwoo pulls out his laptop and Soonyoung's Bud Lime leftovers from the cooler. He sips on one and is actually surprised that the Wi-Fi works, so he checks his inbox and messages, assures his friends and online sphere that he’s survived the first day of his cross-country trip. He replies to Soonyoung’s crying cat emojis and _already miss you two so much_ texts with a fake-cruel _k_.

Chan emerges damp and clean from the bathroom and drops hard on his bed. Wonwoo doesn’t think anything of seeing Chan’s toothbrush and face wash on the counter at first. It’s when he sets down his own things next to Chan’s that he frowns, _oh no_ , he wouldn’t mind getting used to it. Sharing a space with him, seeing their belongings side by side. It’s too easy to imagine. More than it should be.

The lamp between their beds is still on when Wonwoo gets out, and even in the middle of summer in the desert, he has on a hoodie and flannel pants to sleep. The air conditioner kicks on next to Chan’s bed, causing him to groan and roll over in discontent to lower the fan strength and pull the sheets up closer to his body.

There’s a pout in his voice as he whines. “Jesus, why are hotel rooms always so cold? I can’t die of hypothermia here. My grandma will be right about all those times she scolded me for sleeping with the fan on.”

Wonwoo laughs and in his head thanks Chan for taking the bed closest to the air. Maybe he remembered that Wonwoo naturally runs cold. Chan simply being a considerate friend is a nicer, less concerning thought to end the day on. He can and should return the favor. _Is_ returning the favor by driving him the whole way, but he opens his duffel bag and tosses an extra blanket onto Chan’s bed. _Thanks, hyung_ is the last thing he hears before sleep takes him down.

The drive the next day is seven hours to Moab, and they leave at half past ten after filling up on Dunkin’ Donuts and gas.

It’s weird because it’s only the second day but the drive seems more, what, contemplative? Chan doesn’t talk quite as much, he mostly keeps on his phone and even his music choices seem to have chilled out. At least Wonwoo doesn’t feel as tense today, a little more accustomed to desert highways now.

They’re passing through the northwest corner of Arizona when Chan looks up from his phone.

“Hyung, is it cool if I call Vernon for a bit? Since it’s Sunday he has some time to talk.”

And Wonwoo lets him, because it doesn’t bother him. It's fine.

Chan disconnects his phone from the Bluetooth and calls Vernon, greeting him with a simple _hey_ , no pet name or overwrought affection in his tone. Wonwoo doesn’t _want_ to eavesdrop, but his mind can’t help filling some of the blanks in their conversation ( _where are you right now_ , Arizona, _oh wow_ , yeah we’re on our way to see some cool rocks, _haha save a cool rock for me_ ).

Then Chan asks “do you wanna say hi to Wonwoo-hyung?” and puts his phone on speaker.

“ _Hi, Wonwoo-hyung. How’s the drive?_ ” It’s hard not to smile at the near-monotone warmth of his voice, especially when his _hi_ comes out like _hiii_. He likes Vernon. They’re friends.

“It’s going well. We’ve seen some very interesting roadkill. How’s producing for Lady Gaga?”

Vernon’s giggle comes out fuzzy through Chan’s phone speaker. “ _Oh what, you’re not supposed to know it’s Gaga-sunbaenim. It’s going good, though, I’m looking forward to it. And to seeing you guys, in like, four days! I miss you._ ”

“Oh, that’s sweet. I know you’ve missed me more than Chan, though. We’ll see you soon.” It’s still bafflingly easy to joke with Vernon, who doesn’t see that Chan rolls his eyes at Wonwoo before returning their conversation to semi-private.

He tries to focus on the road and drown out the phone call happening next to him. None of his business, no funny business. Count the traffic cones when they reach a stretch of construction work. Take in the sight of huge stone walls curving over either side of them, sparsely covered with pats of green here and there, cracked with centuries of stationery towering. But every time he picks up the faint low mumble of Vernon’s voice on the other line, his mind always goes back to him, to the unwritten contract between him and Chan.

There’s the always relevant question of _what does he have that I don’t?_ He can’t think of himself and Vernon as a venn diagram. That’s too simple, too layman, not nearly enough nuance, at best a starting point. He has to qualify the both of them through spectrums.

On a scale of Wonwoo to Vernon, how genuinely cool are your niche interests? How often do you have to fight the urge to be pretentious? Vernon never comes off as pretentious. Cool comes naturally to him.

Or, which end of chill awkwardness does Chan find more charming: the point where Wonwoo can start and carry a conversation _just_ shy of boring, or where Vernon’s aloof demeanor is, like, uniquely approachable?

Is your age difference basically non-existent or is it just a little bit weird? The gaps between twenties seem exponential somehow. It’s worse if he thinks of it as wanting an undergrad.

They both have jobs that take them to the other coast. Chan is urgency and passion, wide-smiling ambition. Vernon and Wonwoo could both be his foil in their apparent level-headedness, sometimes a veil for how clueless they can be. But Vernon’s hands don’t tremble, least not when they hold Chan’s.

And whose voice is deeper? Sexier? Wonwoo wants to kick himself. _Fucking stop it_. _Just drive._

After about forty minutes of talking, Chan says “okay, I’ll see you Thursday. Yeah. Love you. Bye.”

It’s fine.

Chan hangs up just in time for them to pass a sign promising a rest area. They exit and stop for a bathroom break and to throw away their snack trash and stretch out their legs. Sweat begins to dew on them after just two minutes outside.

They reach Utah and _Empire State of Mind_ comes on, like the music and maps apps on his phone are in cahoots. Wonwoo croons out _concrete jungle wet dream tomato_ alongside Alicia Keys. Apparently, Chan had never misheard those lyrics before, so his laughter comes out loud and breathless. It feels like a triumph.

Wonwoo figures the song is a good way to bring up this topic when Chan catches his breath. “What are you gonna do when you get there? To New York?”

 _You_. Not _we_ , though he assumes there will be time for _we_ , but he still takes into consideration Chan’s main reason for this trip. His destination is Vernon. And besides, there’s plenty of _we_ in getting there.

“I don’t know exactly,” Chan’s lips pull in a tight line. “Honestly, when I get there, I think Vernon might...”

Then he doesn’t say anything, and Wonwoo’s in the middle of changing lanes when he catches the distance in Chan’s face.

“You think he might what?”

“Nothing.” He turns to prop his elbow on the window, still looking away. His attempt to turn his original thought into something palatable doesn’t go unnoticed by Wonwoo. “He might make me try some weird food. If you’re free after your thing, you can join us, he wants me to meet some of his friends and I know he’d be happy to hang out with you again.”

At one point, he realizes the road signs have turned from green to rock-red, as if the dust and dry shrubs weren’t enough of a reminder that they’re in the desert, have been in the desert for the past six hundred miles or so. Chan makes sure to get some pictures on his phone just through the car window, probably for SnapChat documentation, photographic evidence that he was in Moab and Moab had him in it.

They eat dinner and find a decent hotel to spend the night before their hike tomorrow. There isn’t a wall without a painting or photograph of the surrounding landscapes, of every wonder available at the national parks, but Wonwoo needs to look at everything with fresh, non-bleary eyes before he can fully appreciate the full scope of their beauty. They’re planning on getting up early because most people go in the afternoon, and they’re still going to drive to Colorado afterwards.

Wonwoo gets to shower first tonight. When he finishes and the steam follows him out of the bathroom, Chan is smiling down at his phone, sitting on the edge of the bed closest to the aircon, again. But this room isn’t quite as cold. He falls asleep with his glasses on before Chan finishes showering, with the lights still on.

At six Wonwoo’s phone alarm rings them awake, and when he reaches over to stop it, he finds his glasses next to it on the nightstand. Chan takes half an hour to get up, Wonwoo slowly goes through his morning routine and dresses in a tank and shorts and baseball cap while sing-songing _Chan-ah, get up, wake up, it’s cool rock time_ , in themes and variations. Chan finally sits up, eyes squinting and hair sticking up in unflattering directions, and Wonwoo has half a mind to take a picture and send it to Soonyoung.

But Chan flings off the covers and yawns himself awake, washing his face and brushing his teeth before pulling on the tie-dye tank he’d worn the day they agreed to drive together. The two slather themselves in sunscreen and make sure their backpacks are properly stocked. Wonwoo pointedly does not look at the definition of Chan’s calves and the peek of his thighs when he pulls up the hem of his mesh shorts to put sunscreen on.

 _Forbidden skin. Off-limits legs_. God, Wonwoo’s pathetic.

Moab is all desert and rocks with majesty etched into them in red layers. Every side of the road surrounded by natural monuments that arch and shade over all the bushes spotting the sand. They eat a filling, albeit woefully American, diner breakfast before entering the park. The signs guide them through a winding route, low speed limit like enjoying the scenery is legally mandated. It’s gorgeous and it’s fucking hot. Wonwoo thinks even on a full battery his electric hand fan will die on him before the day is over. 

They get their passes and maps at the visitor’s center and they’re lucky there aren’t as many people this early in the morning. Most of the hikes to the different arches aren’t too far from the parking lots, and Wonwoo actually feels good moving this much after consecutive hours of sitting behind the wheel, after months of built-up home office work and screens and typing and scrolling. The air does taste different here, dry, challenging, but it’s nice. He finds himself humming absentmindedly as his sneakers tread the paths and stairways up to stone windows, where it looks like something colossal has poked holes into the slabs with playful fingers.

He pulls out his phone to take a video as they approach the two side-by-side windows in the distance, hollow ellipses opening up to cloud irises and mountains beyond them, blackbrush freckling the sand of its face.

Wonwoo nods to the scene. “Look. It’s like the sky is wearing glasses.”

Chan naturally possesses more energy than him but never walks too far behind or in front of him. He marvels with hushed _wow_ s at the sheer scale of everything, how still and grand stone can be as the sun stretches up to color the morning. There are other people hiking and taking photos on the paths, but Wonwoo treats the view as a personal treasure. It’s fine if he pretends to be selfish here, too.

The difficult part of the day comes when they make the three-hour hike to Delicate Arch, the subject of every fucking postcard and license plate, and Wonwoo makes them stop several times as the rock beneath them gets steeper and smoother. The sun is more of an enemy than it ever has been and even Chan’s encouragement sounds sapped of its usual enthusiasm.

A comforting pat on Wonwoo’s shoulder turns into a squeeze of his bicep, which makes Wonwoo’s eyes go wide, but Chan just remarks “come on, I know you’ve been working out more, you can do this.” Wonwoo’s skin can't get any hotter, but it does, somehow. The bag of trail mix they’re sharing is almost depleted of M&M’s. Wonwoo is struggling to cope with the diminishing ratio and with the definite non-flirting touches that Chan inflicts on him.

But holy shit, when they reach the top, the toil is worth it.

Wonwoo rethinks everything he’s known about beauty, about colors and nature and things yet untouched by man. Where the highway is mundane, boorish, riddled with human flaw in some parts and procedurally generated at others, the canyon is carved out by some perfect architect with eons of skill beyond earthly knowledge. No code, no engine. The rocks slope into each other and he thinks about erosion and forever. That layers of stone look like flesh and striated muscle, like Chan's calves flexing with effort to climb the path.

Chan allows silence to pass between them, because something similar must be dawning on him, too, but he eventually finds some words of relevance.

“I told you my parents took me to the Grand Canyon when I was little.” Chan doesn’t look away from the view as he speaks. Wonwoo doesnt look away from Chan.

“I really didn’t care for it. Just a bunch of big red rocks in weird shapes. Honestly, I thought it was kind of ugly. So, just... _irregular_. And I spent the rest of my childhood wondering what was so beautiful about them.”

It’s different seeing it in real life, obviously, but why should it be? In a photograph nothing moves, and these lifeless formations of stone and soil are just as still. But somehow, through the lens of his glasses and not of cameras translated through a retina display, the earth seems to breathe before him. Time is not suspended in pixels here.

Chan continues. “But now, all these random shapes. I think I understand.” He nods to no one, to the clouds. Wonwoo takes his words as they are, an admission of past faulty thinking, a realization, a reverence. The three years that separate them in age seem even more like a gulf now. He thinks he’s already had this epiphany, what Chan is feeling now. And yet there’s something new about it, seeing him come to terms with this nameless, humbling thing they share.

Chan gives a little laugh, more in wonder and reflective amusement. “Is that what growing up is? Finding beauty in all the random shapes?”

It’s hard to breathe for both of them, but for different reasons.

Wonwoo swallows and almost feels guilty for disregarding the wide sky and the red monuments of rock curving around them like earth’s collarbones. He sees in profile how Chan’s eyes give way to his cheeks when he smiles. The square jut of his jaw outlined now by slivers of warm shadow.

He looks at Chan, who he’s seen a million times in a billion different lights and angles. He chooses Chan when the scenery offers its rare gifts to him in this moment. Wonwoo figures that growing up is prioritizing.

Terms from more elegant scholarship call out to him in brief sense memories. There was that one art history class he took at Minghao’s suggestion for one of his humanities credits. He thinks of _arcadia_ and the _sublime_.

Wonwoo looks at the sky, a spectrum. He conjures another spectrum, too, the one of how self-certain someone can be, and that he and Chan exist at two ends of it. But he doesn’t think of them as opposites.

Chan is boisterous and does what he wants and knows who he is, like every part of him is an inherent, white-hot truth. Often Wonwoo doesn’t know something about himself until someone tells him.

There’s Chan, and there’s the sun commanding the horizon. Wonwoo doesn’t try to tell them apart.

**Author's Note:**

> Dyamond Lyfe and Hitbox are not real things but they are based on [Anamanaguchi](https://open.spotify.com/artist/2UwJRAgSOi1zcLkvUNc8XL?si=5oZBzxxxR6exATO_d37aNQ) and [Polygon](https://www.polygon.com/) respectively. However the Vice mini-docs about [Mormon Porn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PnOh5l80d8) and [VR Sex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBRSR_LGlOE&ab_channel=VICE) are real.
> 
> Please let me know what you think! I’d genuinely love comments encouraging me to finish this, God Knows I Need It. Talk to me on [CuriousCat](https://curiouscat.me/changbinglish) & [Twitter](https://twitter.com/changbinglish) and THANK YOU to the mods of the Dino Summerwine Fest for organizing this!


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